


Tevinter Slave

by narath



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood Magic, Tevinter, Tevinter Culture and Customs, Tevinter Imperium (Dragon Age)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 15:26:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21273428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narath/pseuds/narath





	Tevinter Slave

She couldn’t count the syllables in her name, a battle with an ultimate defeat. She traced the lines of her strong jaw, wondering if she was gifted any of her mother's features.  
She caught her own eyes in the reflection of a goblet, silver on silver. The curved surface hid the true expression of her face; showing only the glimmer of her decorations, fused into her skin and hair. Another defeat.

Atelas, her younger brother, shared the stormy clouds that found refuge in their irises, a moving sky reflected in a tranquil sea. She wondered if her mother really fell for her father because he had told her that the ocean in her eyes was where his world rested; this is what she told Atelas when he asked her, dirt on his cheeks and cuts on the soles of his feet.  
She told him she could remember them, the smell of cherries in late summer rain.  
But she couldn’t even remember her own name.

“Galain!” It bellowed like doom down the hall, bells ringing, known desperation settling deep in her gut; a snake, hissing.  
She allowed herself a moment behind closed eyes, reminding the nervous cells in her skin that at least she still was.  
She was and she would still be.  
Actus me invito factus non est meus actus.

“Galain!” He shouted again, and she knew, she knew and she withered, twice for a crime committed in negligence.  
“Venio, messere” she resigned, collecting heavy books in her broken embrace.  
The hall was great, silent, but for the clinking of her golden cuffs rushing ahead of her in a humiliating crescendo.  
She settled with the dust as the tomes fell open to the floor, lifted again by the three enchanters circling a group of young elves, worth naught more than a trial of recently discovered magic.

“Altiora Etiam Petamus,” they demanded as they cut her skin, prying it open to weep.  
She focused on the same sentence of the chant she was forced to recite, blood swirling around her in a growing fog, consuming the lives of the young men; her hands begging for forgiveness as they rose towards the ceiling.

Na via lerno victoria - Only the living know victory.


End file.
